Just to be clear, the Lewiston, Maine, police arrived at the scene within 90 seconds of receiving a call for help.
At 6:56 p.m. Wednesday, the initial 911 call was placed from Just-In-Time Recreation.
At 6:57 p.m., dispatchers relayed the call.
At 6:58 p.m. four officers were at the scene.
But it was too late. By then 10 had been murdered and the perpetrator had moved on to Schemengees Bar and Grille where he fatally shot eight others.
Of the 18 slain, their ages ranged from 14 to 76. Another 13 were wounded.
Despite the quick response time by law enforcement officials, the carnage was horrific. The perpetrator’s weapon of choice was an AK-47 rifle, a rapid-fire gun equipped with hundreds of rounds of bullets. The guns were initially manufactured for the purposes of war.
WEDNESDAY’S carnage occurred in the hometown of U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a proponent of gun rights. In Maine, he had argued, people use guns only to hunt animals.
The loss of so many, so quickly, opened his eyes to the sad fact that he had been living in “a false confidence that our community was above this and that we could be in full control,” he said.
Rep. Golden, a Democrat, renewed the call for Congress to once again ban military-style semiautomatic rifles, as did President Joe Biden.
Long ago — from 1994 to 2004 — the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was the law of the land.
The late Sen. Dianne Feinstein pushed the legislation in response to a mass shooting on a schoolyard in Stockton, Calif., when five elementary students were slain and another 24 injured.
To get the votes, sponsors included a “sunset provision,” allowing the legislation to expire in 10 years.
Since then, Congress has failed to renew the ban on assault weapons.
GUN RIGHTS advocates defend their use with the disingenuous meme, “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”
